Actors We Miss: Phil Hartman

In retrospect, Phil Hartman's final sketch on 'Saturday Night Live' might be the least funny moment in that show's thirty-five year history, and that's saying quite a bit given that Robert De Niro has hosted the show three times. Hartman -- who had been a consistently brilliant presence on Lorne Michael's comedic institution since he joined the cast in 1986 -- bade farewell to the program that launched his career by leading the whole troupe in a parody rendition of "So Long, Farewell," which ended with Hartman and Chris Farley cuddling alone on the front of the stage, waving goodbye to the audience. Within four years both would be dead, and that shared moment on Stage 8H would become an elegiac image of two hilariously gifted comedians: Chris Farley a movie star who briefly was, and Phil Hartman a movie star who should have been (Alison Nastasi wrote a great Actors We Miss post devoted to Farley).